Hope for the despairing

In the last year or so I've been privileged to get to read about the lives of various Saints within Orthodoxy - most of whom after learning about them and their teachings left me longing to have been able to interact with them while they walked this earth, but I take comfort in the fact that I can interact with them by way of my prayers today.

One Saint in particular is St. Tikhon of Zadonsk. He lived 1722 - 1783, and while a monastic for almost 50 years of his life he also spent time as a Bishop over an area that at the time was in sore need of a pious leader. However, it was his moving to the monastery in Zadonsk in 1769 that provides us with the means of identifying which St. Tikhon he is.

Something that has contrasted St. Tikhon from other Saints' lives - and I have Beloved St. Ambrose of Optina in mind with this tought - was the fact that he often times wrestled with despair and sadness. That he was particularly aware of his need for repentance, often seen/heard pacing the length of his cell at night weeping as he prayed the Psalter in prayer from memory. Something that added to this was the fact that he was given such a major responsibility as a Bishop at a young age over an area that would have tried the most tested candidate. However, by God's grace he accomplished much in helping the clergy of his area attain the needed levels of piety to best serve their flocks.

In regards to despondency, he actually wrote some things that I've been encouraged by. So much so that I just had to share them as he says things far better than I ever could. As one who has struggled with aspects of sadness and despondency - very medicinal words from St. Tikhon! So without further adieu, I'm going to let St. Tikhon do the talking from here on:

I myself often have this feeling, and have it just now, and I have noticed it with other Christians: for you are not the only one to whom such things happen. But I do not despair of salvation in Christ, and I believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come as we read in the Creed - and this I counsel also for you and for others. In the Scriptures we see that Christ came for our sake, that he might "find" us too; he does not judge sinners but unrepentant sinners. When the thought overpowers us: how can we be with the apostles, prophets, martyrs, and other great saints who shine with such virtues? Let us thus answer our doubt: we desire to be with the thief, who at the very end of his life uttered only one cry of repentance and was heard. Let his words become our words of prayer, our prayer before communion. This despair comes from the devil in revenge for the mercy of God; pray as Ps. 38:21. "Forsake me not, O Lord"; or Ps. 3. There is profit in these thoughts for they distract our attention from worldly vanity. To be in such a state and to fight against it is a sign that one is in faith and the state of grace; let us sing: "The Lord is my light" (Ps. 27). Woe to those who do not repent; but those who seek repentance and salvation, in faith and prayer, may expect the mercy of God "in whom there is plenteous redemption: (Ps. 130:7). "The Lord will perfect that which concerns thee" (Ps. 138). "Our soul waiteth for the Lord" (Ps. 53: 20 - 22). Read all these, reflect, grow strong. The Lord may help you. And remember me a sinner.

It is easier for a man to endure every sort of exterior temptation than a twinge of conscience mixed with despair. More than ever is patience needed, silence and heart-felt sighs. What we need in such a case is, as St. Paul said in Rom. 4:18: "against hope is to believe in hope." We must listen not to what one's own thoughts say but to what God promises. Ezek. 18:22, 23: "All his transgressions . . shall not be mentioned unto him; in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure that the wicked should die, and not that he should return from his ways and live?" and again, Rom. 5:20: "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," and other such comforting words. To this effort and patient hope the prophet exhorts us in Ps. 27:14. "Be of good courage, wait on the Lord, and he shall strengthen thine heart," and he emboldens us by reminding us of the mercy of God, PS. 9:12: "he remembereth them; he forgetteth not the cry of the humble,"; and he gives us his own example in Ps. 40:1: "I waited patiently for the Lord: and he inclined unto me and heard my cry," and also Ps. 27:13: "I had fainted - unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, intercede for us sinners!